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The puffers or blowfishes and the related porcupinefishes (family Diodontidae) can inflate their body by swallowing water (or air if out of water). This adaptation no doubt is a deterrent to potential predators, although large sharks sometimes consume them. Puffers are further characterized by having tough scaleless skin (often with small spinules), a beak composed of 4 fused dental plates with a central suture, a slit-like gill opening in front of the pectoral fin base, no spines in the fins, a single short- based dorsal fin, a similar anal fin below, no pelvic fins, and no ribs.

They produce a powerful poison, tetraodotoxin, in their tissues, especially the liver and ovaries. Eating them can cause serious illness, frequently death. The degree of toxicity varies greatly depending on the species and also according to geographic area and season. However, some puffers are considered a great delicacy in Japan, where they are prepared by specially trained and licensed cooks. The diet of puffers consists of urchins, sponges, coral, starfishes, crabs, molluscs, worms, tunicates, and algae.

The family is distributed in all tropical and subtropical seas (also some freshwater species); they are frequently associated with soft-bottom habitats. Worldwide there are 25 genera with about 164 species. Sixteen species from five genera have been recorded from the tropical eastern Pacific; including one circumtropical, five Indo-Pacific and nine endemics. One genus is endemic to our region.

Günther, A., 1870., Catalogue of the fishes in the British Museum. Catalogue of the Physostomi, containing the families Gymnotidae, Symbranchidae, Muraenidae, Pegasidae, and of the Lophobranchii, Plectognathi, Dipnoi, ...[thru] ... Leptocardii, in the British Museum., Brithish Museum (Natural History)8:1-549.

Jordan , D.S. and Bollman, C.H., 1890., Descriptions of new species of fishes collected at the Galapagos Islands and along the coast of the United States of Colombia, 1887-88, by the U.S. Fish Commission steamer 'Albatross'., Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., 12:149-183.

Jordan , D.S. and Gilbert, C.H., 1882., List of Fishes now in the Museum of Yale College, Collected by Prof. Frank H. Bradley, at Panama, with Descriptions of Three New Species., Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., 5:620-632.

Jordan , D.S. and Gilbert, C.H., 1883., List of the fishes now in the museum of Yale College, collected by Prof. Frank H. Bradley at panama, with descriptions of three new species., Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., 5(1882):620-632.

Love, M.S., Mecklenburg, C.W., Mecklenburg, T.A., Thorsteinson, L.K., 2005., es of the West Coast and Alaska: a checklist of North Pacific and Artic Ocena species from Baja California to the Alaska-Yukon border., U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, 288pp.